Indie Rock Blogs – Finding Music on the Internet

On quite a few occasions I’ve been listening to my MP3 player and have been asked by friends what band I was listening to. Upon repeating the name of the band, perhaps We Are Scientists or Arctic Monkeys, I get a blank stare. My friends haven’t heard of them. It’s not because the bands I’m listening to are no good; often it’s just because they haven’t hit it big yet. Once I give my friends a listen they’ll ask where I found out about the music. This is when I give them a guided tour through the world of Indie Rock blogs.

I stumbled upon Indie Rock blogs and MP3 blogs myself two summers ago while searching for some information about the band Death Cab for Cutie. I was directed to a weblog called Regnyouth. On the site I was treated to a short posting about the band and a few sample MP3s. I read through the rest of the blog and came upon the blogroll, a listing of other blogs, and clicked on those links. Suddenly, I had many new music blogs on which to read about new bands and listen to samples.

A FEW OF THE OUTSTANDING INDIE ROCK BLOGS

My Old Kentucky Blog, run by “Dodge,” has been consistently good over the past year. He usually reserves his posts for bands still under the radar (unlike Regnyouth), and provides brief biographies and analysis of the band’s sound and songs. In addition, he writes about recent live shows he’s attended and posts photos. One last thing that sets him apart from other MP3 blogs is the overwhelming amount of links he provides to bands he’s mentioned, fellow MP3 blogs, music news, and radio stations.

Indoor Fireworks is an indie rock blog run out of Dallas by a guy called “The Vicar,” and has been in existence for over a year and a half now. The Vicar is always on top of the new buzz bands and provides strong posts about them, or sometimes even interviews, as he did recently with the up-and-coming band Division Day. As a respected blogger, he is granted an interview desite the fact it will not appear in a major print publication. Once a blogger has been around for a bit, which this guy has, these interviews often happen, as small bands realize this may be their best chance to reach a lot of fans at once.

Rachel is a young woman who has her finger on the pulse of the New York City indie rock scene. She blogs about it on The Underrated Blog. As the editor of the magazine Underrated, she routinely gains access to the best of the set-to-explode bands. Her music blog used to provide more MP3 samples, but recently the format has been changed to quality over quantity, as she goes for a more in-depth profile of the bands she blogs about. One outstanding thing about Rachel is that she often puts on live shows in the New York City area that feature the bands she blogs about.

GOING BEYOND

I’ve listed just a few of the hundreds of blogs I’ve come across in the past two years. The best thing to do is to find an indie rock blog you really enjoy and then work from there. Click on the links to other music blogs that are provided on your favorite site. Chances are, the person you enjoy reading, listens to other bloggers like himself. This will lead you on an endless path of blogs to explore.